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2 ideas
| 22520 | You can't reason someone out of an irrational opinion [Swift] |
| Full Idea: Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired. | |
| From: Jonathan Swift (Letters to a Young Clergyman [1720]) | |
| A reaction: It would be hard to prove this, and someone full of irrational beliefs may have their rationality awakened by a sound argument. Nice remark, but too pessimistic. |
| 5969 | Chrysippus said the uncaused is non-existent [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus said that the uncaused is altogether non-existent. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1045c | |
| A reaction: The difficulty is to see what empirical basis there can be for such a claim, or what argument of any kind other than an intuition. Induction is the obvious answer, but Hume teaches us scepticism about any claim that 'there can be no exceptions'. |